[ so he's been spending time trying to match faces to the app, and when he gets to Monika's he's looking back and forth between the profile and her very quickly. hm. hmmmm indeed. ]
[ look, at least she's not screaming! a once-over is comparably fine. ]
Ah, yes. My "skills" - it is a sword form, you see it is a sort of [ he'll do a gesture. it's completely inscrutable. ] a fast strike, but also slow. Hence the porridge.
[ lol its fine. i'm sure it's fine and not something ominous. he does not know what twitter is, but he just accepts that for what it is. something to do with birds. ]
[ wow. what a pride weekend! he doesn't even know how to react to any of that, so he is choosing instead to ... not to. going to sit somewher relatively quiet. the ikea? ]
More, or less chaotic than you were expecting all this to be?
[happy pride weekend! monika is also chilling in the ikea until she figures out how to look lambda in the eyes without feeling incredibly embarrassed.]
there's a blip of surprise, but— not quite. there's something muted about it. monika stares at the message for a moment, frowning, and then she slowly lets out a breath.]
[ honestly, the emotion is probably relief. that he's not the only one that got this, and then didn't have to make the choice by himself whether or not to share it. ]
[ he'll just be honest, he wasn't going to keep it from Ylfa and Haru. ]
I suppose the truth is-- if we do not, Ylfa and I, our world is likely under the same threat as this. It doesn't change much for me. I don't know if that's good or bad.
[she nods, smiling just a little in spite of how ominous this is.]
Ahaha, same. I told my team right away.
[... a pause, then. and she huffs out a laugh. it's completely devoid of humor.]
Mmm, right. My situation is a little... unique. So it doesn't really change anything for me. But my teammates have homes to go back to, so I would say it's bad.
Just how bad depends on how many people received the same message, though.
I don't think there is much use hiding it. I don't know that I would want to-- I don't want to be responsible for something like that. Erasing a world.
A good, selfless person will see it as a warning to stay away from teams that are close to erasure. Someone more selfish and scared, however... Wouldn't they see it as a threat? Win this game at any cost, or everyone you have ever known and loved will be erased. Even a world can feel like a small price to pay if you're desperate enough.
I'm not saying we shouldn't share it. But you can still be indirectly responsible if the information lands in the wrong hands, you know?
[ hello monika, welcome to the ... Don't Touch Grass. Gerard is examining a VR Headset to see if it can even fit on a frog head? his eyes are kinda on either side of his head. ]
[ he nods, and then thinks. I assume you do it with your brain? i don't know.
But it all unfolds into a vast ... library. The ground beneath their feet is sort of like parchment weight, sinking a little like the pages of a book, and shelves and shelves and shelves of books line the hallway. And the walls, the arched ceiling are made of even more books and parchment intermingling. Some of the books are huge as if for a giant. One of the walls is just a massive tome, 20 or 30 feet tall, and then some of the archways are sort of higgledy-piggledy stacks of books that just sort of come up, that you could probably pick one out and you don't know if you'd collapse the arch or not. Doesn't even look like it's that secured in there. Some of the window frames have pages that you can see some text to, and you look down on the floor and see that there's even text written on the parchment here, incredibly fine, but you do see the phrase "once upon a time," beginning a fairy tale ... ]
[ idk pigs happen i never know how to start these HAVE MEM ]
You open your eyes, and you are floating in water with lily pads surrounding you and a shock of glass erupting from your chest. Blood seeps into the water around you.
You’ve still got the damn glass in your chest. You twist the shard again. You cannot possibly remove it, but you hear a voice say,
Ring! And you see, approaching you, with beautiful, golden wings and a corona of light around her body, is a beautiful fairy. She has gleaming, golden skin and bright turquoise hair wrapped up beautifully with shells and jewels around it, and she flits over to you and says,
”Oh, my poor and dear darling prince! You are so badly hurt!”
“Yes!” Your reply is not polite.
“Are you all right?”
“No! No, I'm not all right! And I wasn't all right before I had the glass shoved in me! I'm a frog! I'm a prince! I should be a prince, but I'm a frog! And now I've been thrown into the water after being stabbed. Some furniture kicked my ass. What are you?’
“I know, I know, I know. I am so dreadfully sorry. Your Highness. None of this was supposed to happen. We need to get you back with the Princess Elody.”
“Correct. Yes.”
“We need to find what has corrupted her mind that she constantly thinks of war, and we need to change her back.’
“Right.” Wait. “No, no, no. We need to change me back.”
“Yes, of course, yes yes yes, but of course-“ “She's off, no, she-“ “She is the one to blame, because obviously-“
“Okay, well-“
“You wouldn't have become a frog if she had-”
“It’s not entirely her fault! It's... She's... The things... The problem is the outer things ruining our life, okay? If there's not giants coming knocking places down, destroying our castle, Elody never would've got it in her head to go off fighting. The bad stuff is all out there. We had a very nice life in the castle.”
“You are so correct. A wonderful, wonderful life.”
“So just undo this.”
“Yes.”
“The glass first.”
“Yes.”
“Then the frog thing.”
“Yes.”
“And then just tell me where Elody is, and we'll figure it out.”
“So, here's the issue.
All of this, the times of shadow, the Neverafter, me and all of the other fairies are working as hard as we can to fix this and get everything back on track. There are so many happily ever afters that need to continue to ever after. It's just that it's all kind of become a little scrambled, you know? So we're fixing problems, but we sort of have to fix them in the order. You know, sort of like, well, before you have to bail out the boat, but you also have to fix the leak at the bottom of the boat, and you have to get enough water out to fix the leak, but also the water will keep... These are complicated issues.”
Obviously you know all this already. She’s wasting your time.
“It sounds uncomplicated to me. I am in front of you, and perhaps there are other things that you need to deal with, but it seems like the easiest thing for you to do right now would be to pull this glass out of me and then wave your wand and turn me back into a handsome prince.”
“Well, I would love that. Interesting point, though. You're not in immediate danger of dying, because you are dead.”
“Fantastic, so put me... Okay, so then what? Put me in the fucking book. The book seemed cool. Everything was just... When King Cole went in there, just back-“
“Sorry, book? What book?”
You pause. Maybe you shouldn’t mention the book.
“The theoretical book of how things should be. You know, you are cursed. You become a frog. You find true love. You're not a frog anymore. Everything's great, and then oop, you start turning into a frog again, then you kill the fairy who did that to you. If anything, that's a sequel. We're done. Unless this is a trilogy, in which case, get the glass out of me.”
“I understand. In the world in which you died, a fairy cursed you. But ask yourself this, Prince Gerard. Would you have become wed to the Princess Elody had you not been turned into a frog?”
“Okay, yes. I don't begrudge the first frogging. But after that, I did it.”
“I’m so glad that you can see reason. The first frogging is, of course, a part of one of the Neverafter's most beautiful love stories, but the second one is a mistake.”
“You keep referring to these things as... There's just the one thing, and it's ruined.’
“Yes, yes, of course you are right. There is just one time, one once upon a time from which you hail. I am so sorry to say, but in that world, you are dead. You cannot return to that world. But, but, there are worlds that are so close! I mean, we're talking so, so close. Hardly any, you know, variation. Cards on the table, here's what we would love. We would love for you to come back to life.”
“Perfect.”
“Now, when you come back to life, you might be in a version of your body that is a little bit more in the wrong direction than this one is now, but- I am so very sorry, Your Highness. What about this? We are going to bring you back. You are going to enter a world where all of this gets to go back to the way it was before, but not right at the start. At the start, it will seem substantively worse. However, there is an opportunity within that world for you to rejoin the companions that you met, which seems interesting. You mentioned something. Was there any sort of object of significance or anything of that kind?”
“ I think it was just the companionship.”
“Companionship?
“Yes, Elody and I, before all of this got turned upside-down, we had many, many friends who began becoming distracted by more serious matters, and I was kind of left to my own devices, and it's been nice to be around... It's just been nice to be around the old friends again.”
“Gerard, we are working as quickly and diligently as we can to make everything right again, and I promise you that if you discover by what means you and your companions were able to come to places like this where you may speak with a shard of glass within your chest, and more importantly than that, if you are able to keep an eye on the Princess Rosamund and specifically tell me if anybody speaks to her or if she has found a contact with any of the forces, giants and ogres and wizards and all manner of terrible things. We believe that there might be people, quite wicked people, that are courting her.”
“And if they're going after princesses, have they gone after Elody?”
Only a wishy-washy answer and then.
Nestled within your chest is the glass shard, and though it stings you every time you move, it does not seem to deal a death blow to you. You are much more monstrous than you were before, and have some sort of horrifying toughness that allows you to continue to live even impaled upon this shard of glass as you are. You also are a little confused. You have sets of memories of the wonderful life you lived with the Princess Elody, but this world, the attack from Snowhold was so much more violent, the losses so much greater. You remember seeing Elody astride a blood-soaked horse, her eyes wide with battle rage, huge, golden mace overhead. This is a darker version of your story, and you are most confused about the manner in which you changed, because you thought you remembered receiving a kiss from a princess in the form of a frog as the act of faith and love that transformed you, but you have this strange, surreal memory now of being picked up and thrown into the wall.
[she rolls her eyes... this is why your wife divorced you, sir.]
Well... It makes sense. It's like the adaptation of your original story, or the sequel nobody asked for, right? Like, instead of improving on the source material, they just made things unnecessarily edgy or they took away the things that made the story special in the first place.
[ he just goes like `edgy` but then accepts it. sure. ]
That's the thing, I think. No one tells any stories about, I don't know. Sitting around having a nice breakfast. Or experiencing a normal fight about laundry. The only stories are the ones about true love, or dramatic sacrifice and dying horrible. They have to teach you lessons. You don't learn anything when you're just ... happy.
No one wants to read stories like that either, I think... There always needs to be some source of conflict or drama to keep the protagonists from just being happy. Life can't ever be easy.
[anyway, remember when gerard asked her about the world she destroyed? now he gets to see monika nuke the world (6:20:31-6:26:34) live! aka a hellish out of body experience where your physical form no longer exists but your consciousness remains omnipresent, so you get to watch what your friends' lives would be like if you never existed... spoilers: it's still bad. all the ui aspects are visible in the memory]
[HONESTLY she has probably been walking around, concentrating through her pin, like someone who is trying to get a single bar of reception on their phone. help.]
—Hello? [can she see him or is this voice only... she looks around for him.] Gerard, is that you?
Yes, correct. Okay, listen, I'm going to move-- I'm standing halfway into a store and it's annoying the employees quite a bit. I'm trying to move! Your door is the thing in the way!
[there's always time to be funny when you are Struggling.
she nods, though.]
Mm, basically. We felt like we had to do something, and it made sense at the time. It didn't feel fair to just... sit back and wait for salvation, while letting someone else play the game for us.
Sure. Basically why I started doing what I was doing as well. I couldn't simply sit and wait, and let a child go out and do what needed to be done while I waited and pretended that some other solution could happen.
Exactly. To be honest, it's a little messed up how everyone is totally okay with leaving the full weight of this on Ylfa and Haru's shoulders. Don't they realize how horrible that is?
You and Netzach. I have an offer, and I think you should seriously consider it.
I know a bit of your situation from Ylfa and her experiences with your memories, and I also know Ylfa extended an invitation to the Neverafter. But I also know she probably made it sound extremely bad. And I won't argue it's not bad, but it might not be bad forever.
There's a library, between worlds. And because of who and what you are, I think you could use it to actually travel between certain places. At least to where you came from and back. And then from there to other worlds of story. If not the Neverafter then another one, maybe a safer one. Netzach I'm less sure of, but I really think he needs to go somewhere other than his Library, you could take him with you, instead of going with him. But I didn't think it was fair to you, to do this without giving you the choice.
thank you, gerard. this is a very generous offer. to be honest, as much as i want to help him fix his world...i'd like to convince him to come somewhere else with me. he deserves a happier life than the one he's headed back to in his world. but i don't know how. he's so dutybound? which i never thought i'd say is a BAD thing, but in his case, it kind of is.
[they are also headed for netzach's canon bad ending, which they don't know yet, but. girl, help.]
i see...well, there are 38 of us waiting to be sent home. i wouldn't be surprised if poor ylfa and haru accidentally sent two of us to the wrong world. it would be such an unfortunate accident, but totally understandable.
[monika has not learned her lesson about deciding things for people... but it's fine. this is for a good cause.]
ylfa and haru had such a long week! it's not surprising they would make an unfortunate mistake like that. 😮
tbh i don't have a strong preference. i know nahida invited netzach to teyvat. and mizuki extended an invitation for me to join her in tokyo. but my world isn't as fleshed out as some of yours. it's seriously tiny. so...i think i'll be okay as long as it's a world where both of us can be happy.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
WEEKEND ZERO - SATURDAY
A writer, then?
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[... Giving him a once over because he sure is a man sized frog. Who is also a prince? Hmmmm.]
So, why is the panther in the porridge... your Highness?
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Ah, yes. My "skills" - it is a sword form, you see it is a sort of [ he'll do a gesture. it's completely inscrutable. ] a fast strike, but also slow. Hence the porridge.
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[She does not see. But, sure.]
And the rest of your "skills"— Are they also sword forms?
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[ WOW. HARSH ON YOURSELF BUD. ]
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[BUDDY. PAL. She grimaces.]
I'm sure that's not the case. Like, I don't think they're even supposed to be flattering in the first place.
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Probably something similar to what's on my Twitter bio. I look way cuter in my profile picture there, too. [...] It wasn't the real world, by the way.
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Just a world?
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W0 - FRIDAY
I can't say that I'm surprised. Just seems like it started happening so quickly.
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I think we all knew it was bound to happen. But did they really have to jump at the first opportunity they got?
W0 - SUNDAY
More, or less chaotic than you were expecting all this to be?
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Way more! Who could have even expected all that?
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[ i know. and then you have to remember the selfie. it's going to haunt him. ]
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It's probably worse if they didn't expect it, though.
week one, saturday.
... The curse was really a hint all by itself, huh.
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mood. ]
Yes.
It was. After all this time.
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It's too bad. Having confirmation doesn't feel good at all.
W2 - MONDAY
he has the face of someone who looks like they're definitely up to no good. ]
Ah-- Hello! Good morning. No problems here. Nothing to be concerned about.
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You know... it's really suspicious to say something like that when I haven't even asked. What are you up to, Gerard?
week two, friday.
... Have you found anything, Gerard?
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[ frowns. ]
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But you did find something else...?
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[ there's actually a lot of trepidation, some fear. but he digs his phone out and shows it to her. there's a text message on the screen:
Bring them from different worlds. Erase worlds of those who fail to win. This will be a better system for the future. ]
...
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there's a blip of surprise, but— not quite. there's something muted about it. monika stares at the message for a moment, frowning, and then she slowly lets out a breath.]
So you got it, too.
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It seems I did.
[ ... ]
It's not a great message.
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Have you shared this with anyone else?
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[ he'll just be honest, he wasn't going to keep it from Ylfa and Haru. ]
I suppose the truth is-- if we do not, Ylfa and I, our world is likely under the same threat as this. It doesn't change much for me. I don't know if that's good or bad.
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Ahaha, same. I told my team right away.
[... a pause, then. and she huffs out a laugh. it's completely devoid of humor.]
Mmm, right. My situation is a little... unique. So it doesn't really change anything for me. But my teammates have homes to go back to, so I would say it's bad.
Just how bad depends on how many people received the same message, though.
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[ egg group chat. ]
I don't think there is much use hiding it. I don't know that I would want to-- I don't want to be responsible for something like that. Erasing a world.
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A good, selfless person will see it as a warning to stay away from teams that are close to erasure. Someone more selfish and scared, however... Wouldn't they see it as a threat? Win this game at any cost, or everyone you have ever known and loved will be erased. Even a world can feel like a small price to pay if you're desperate enough.
I'm not saying we shouldn't share it. But you can still be indirectly responsible if the information lands in the wrong hands, you know?
W2000 - SUNDAY
That- ... We tried to make him change his story too far, I think.
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... Do you think their worlds are just...?
[gone?]
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He said that-- If Buzen was not in this world, he had no desire to be in it.
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... I guess he got his wish, in a way.
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[ A really sad, terrible thought though isn't it. ]
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monika sighs.]
By the way, did you talk to any of the reapers about the message we got?
W3 - MONDAY
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she truly stands here watching him examine the headset like 🧍♀️]
Um. If it doesn't fit, maybe we could try with two...?
[put a headset over each of his eyes. terrible.]
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[ he'll try that, actually. looking slightly confused, but. it works? ]
Are they supposed to show you something?
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[she grabs another headset, checking it first to make sure it's clean, before popping it on.]
How about this? If you pick the scenery, then I'll take care of configuring everything else.
[she could just start the simulation with something from her world, but... no...]
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But it all unfolds into a vast ... library. The ground beneath their feet is sort of like parchment weight, sinking a little like the pages of a book, and shelves and shelves and shelves of books line the hallway. And the walls, the arched ceiling are made of even more books and parchment intermingling. Some of the books are huge as if for a giant. One of the walls is just a massive tome, 20 or 30 feet tall, and then some of the archways are sort of higgledy-piggledy stacks of books that just sort of come up, that you could probably pick one out and you don't know if you'd collapse the arch or not. Doesn't even look like it's that secured in there. Some of the window frames have pages that you can see some text to, and you look down on the floor and see that there's even text written on the parchment here, incredibly fine, but you do see the phrase "once upon a time," beginning a fairy tale ... ]
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she blinks up at this giant ass library, completely silent for a good second as she takes it all in. and then she exhales.]
Oh... Where are we?
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[ great explanation. very explanatory. ]
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Your stories? Is each book a world of its own or something...?
W3 - SATURDAY
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I don't know why I asked. I guess I was hoping for a different answer?
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though, i still can't believe this happened.
W4 - MONDAY
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After a moment, what she says is:]
You transformed into a prince after getting thrown at a wall?
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True love has many forms.
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[ THIS IS SAID IN SUCH A HALF-ASSED SARCASTIC TONE. ]
I'll be honest, I'm not sure. It just ... got worse. The story. It didn't used to be like that.
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Well... It makes sense. It's like the adaptation of your original story, or the sequel nobody asked for, right? Like, instead of improving on the source material, they just made things unnecessarily edgy or they took away the things that made the story special in the first place.
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That's the thing, I think. No one tells any stories about, I don't know. Sitting around having a nice breakfast. Or experiencing a normal fight about laundry. The only stories are the ones about true love, or dramatic sacrifice and dying horrible. They have to teach you lessons. You don't learn anything when you're just ... happy.
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[anyway, remember when gerard asked her about the world she destroyed? now he gets to see monika nuke the world (6:20:31-6:26:34) live! aka a hellish out of body experience where your physical form no longer exists but your consciousness remains omnipresent, so you get to watch what your friends' lives would be like if you never existed... spoilers: it's still bad. all the ui aspects are visible in the memory]
W4 - FRIDAY - TEXT
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W7 - MONDAY
Hello? Hello. This is actually kind of inconvenient. Hello?
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—Hello? [can she see him or is this voice only... she looks around for him.] Gerard, is that you?
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Yes, correct. Okay, listen, I'm going to move-- I'm standing halfway into a store and it's annoying the employees quite a bit. I'm trying to move! Your door is the thing in the way!
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help.]
Um, okay. Just tell me when you're done moving...?
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[ he sorta fades in and out while he moves around, and then eventually is standing like. halfway through a wall. it's fine. ]
Good?
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ah.]
... It's not worse!
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[ HE CAN TELL IT'S BAD. ]
... So, interesting use of the flamethrower?
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CLOSES HER EYES.]
We really weren't expecting it to blow up the way it did.
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I mean, I don't think I have any high horse here to judge you from. It's not like mine went like I expected either.
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[ okay well, glad we could just Joke Through the Pain. ]
I don't think you did anything wrong. Or, at least, I assume you did it because you were trying to play by the rules.
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she nods, though.]
Mm, basically. We felt like we had to do something, and it made sense at the time. It didn't feel fair to just... sit back and wait for salvation, while letting someone else play the game for us.
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W7 - SATURDAY
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I know a bit of your situation from Ylfa and her experiences with your memories, and I also know Ylfa extended an invitation to the Neverafter. But I also know she probably made it sound extremely bad. And I won't argue it's not bad, but it might not be bad forever.
There's a library, between worlds. And because of who and what you are, I think you could use it to actually travel between certain places. At least to where you came from and back. And then from there to other worlds of story. If not the Neverafter then another one, maybe a safer one. Netzach I'm less sure of, but I really think he needs to go somewhere other than his Library, you could take him with you, instead of going with him. But I didn't think it was fair to you, to do this without giving you the choice.
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to be honest, as much as i want to help him fix his world...i'd like to convince him to come somewhere else with me. he deserves a happier life than the one he's headed back to in his world.
but i don't know how. he's so dutybound? which i never thought i'd say is a BAD thing, but in his case, it kind of is.
[they are also headed for netzach's canon bad ending, which they don't know yet, but. girl, help.]
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So we can help him fail to get home. If you understand my meaning.
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i wouldn't be surprised if poor ylfa and haru accidentally sent two of us to the wrong world. it would be such an unfortunate accident, but totally understandable.
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It would be a terrible accident. They are pretty unorganized, I wouldn't be surprised.
It doesn't have to be ours. It could be anywhere you liked really.
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ylfa and haru had such a long week! it's not surprising they would make an unfortunate mistake like that. 😮
tbh i don't have a strong preference. i know nahida invited netzach to teyvat. and mizuki extended an invitation for me to join her in tokyo.
but my world isn't as fleshed out as some of yours. it's seriously tiny. so...i think i'll be okay as long as it's a world where both of us can be happy.